Labor Activists Rally Against Outsourcing

Toting signs reading "Bring Jobs Home," several dozen labor activists crowded the lawn of the United Steelworkers building on Monday to demand passage for U.S. Senate Bill 2884.

The bill would end tax incentives for companies that move their workforces overseas. Under the legislation, tax credits would be given to companies who move jobs back to the United States.

United Steelworkers International Secretary Treasurer Stan Johnson said the U.S. has lost about six million industrial jobs over the last decade.

"No one working a job in this country today is safe from outsourcing," Johnson declared. "It's time to stop corporations from getting tax credits for sending our jobs overseas."

Many of the speakers at the rally voiced support for President Barack Obama in the November election. Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald took the opportunity to bash Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, saying the former Massachusetts governor made his fortune by outsourcing jobs.

"He not only outsourced them at Bain Capital, where he made millions of dollars by putting people out of work, slashing their pensions, taking away their healthcare," said Fitzgerald, "then, as governor, he decided to outsource."

At the end of the rally, the activists walked from the USW building to Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey's office, to demand that he support the so-called Bring Jobs Home Act.